Yes, interesting that he could skip the mention of the islamo-leftist alliance…

A recent story: last week on France-Culture radio (a state-owned radio which tries to be cultural and sometimes succeed), there was a talk show about “communautarisme”. The talk show started by picking on Jews because, these days, they do not put much their children in state schools. In particular in the 19th district of Paris, which was the theater of much violence and discrimination against Jews, particularly in state schools – and this is well known. The above reason was never mentioned in the broadcast. Both guests were jewish, and I am fairly sure that the two hosts of the talk show are not antisemites (i have listened to this show for a long time now). So, the Jews were accused of being “communautariste”, which can be translated as “locking themselves in their community and happy with it”. At no point did any of the four people on the air mention the words islam or muslim or any synonym.

So I was shocked, and I wrote to the site of the show, saying that the fact that they did not mention muslim “communautarisme” and they kept hitting on the jewish “communautarisme” was basically a metonymy: they thought really of hitting the muslim “communautarisme”, but they could not name it.

One of the talk show hosts (I guess that he is the senior partner) answered my mail and confirmed my analysis. He also added that he receives hate mail and feels that he is being intimidated. He also sent me an example of hate mail. It was bad, but not terrible. But definitely threatening.

So, yes, there is a significant level of intimidation with respect to criticism of islam related behavior in France.

There is one site, which consistently criticizes islam related behavior. It is called “Riposte Laïque”

but, unfortunately, it has a tendency to confusion, mixing together criticism of religious impact in the public domain (of which I approve) and atheist or antireligious propaganda (which is basically another religion and bores me to death).

There are also very rightist sites; usually they are quite disgusting, close to the extreme right and I keep away from them.

“Causeur” is a nice enough site. Rozenzweig wrote an article on the demonstrations against Israel during the Gaza operation:

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It’s interesting that he pointed out that the working class has deserted the “left.” But I’m afraid that it’s not exactly dead, not enough, although of course it is not an independent entity, at least in the USA, that thinks for itself using the old Marxist or DeLeonist or Norman Thomasist criteria. Today, the US “Left” is mostly a manipulated body of public opinion which much resembles the Nazis in its prejudices about Jews. On France, LR might have mentioned the pragmatic, opportunistic recipes of Pascal Boniface, a socialist party “penseur”, who cynically urged the party to support the Arabs against the Jews because there are more Arabs than Jews in France and the SocParty needs them as voters.
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What actually takes place in Brazil is not well known outside the country. Brazil’s not a leftist exception. What’s difficult, however, is to find another case with which to compare it precisely, but once that is done, one will see that the country follows a trajectory similar to that described above.

To begin with, Brazil has quite a varied economy and, thus, it is not as easy to control, and through it, the whole country, as it is for a Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, a place where whoever controls the flow of oil has the power. Then, the governments that came before Lula made most necessary reforms and, thus, in a period of growth, the Worker’s Party, by simply leaving the economy untouched, benefited from the international situation.

But why didn’t Lula immediately try to change the course of the economy? Because he was happy with a working economy that allowed him to spend his and his party’s time and efforts in the conquest of the state machinery.

On the other hand, he used the resources generated by the industrialized and developed Southern states (where his party is weak or altogether rejected by the voters)to buy, through direct subvention, the votes of the Northeast. In this sense at least, his party doesn’t represent the real workers, but rather the workless poor of the most underdeveloped regions.

The actual core of his party, however, besides the urban intellectuals, artists, teachers and state employees is the aristocracy of the unionized workers, and this in a country where only a minority of workers (many of them white-collars) are actually unionized. These and the members of the ultraleftist clandestine parties from the time of the military dictatorship are the Worker’s Party’s main apparatchikis.

Thus, Lula would quite happily behave like Chávez or Evo Morales, but the country is too big and complex and goals such as this can be attained only quite slowly. Even if Lula’s party loses the next 2 or 3 presidential elections, much of the country’s power will still be in the hands of a state machinery controlled by its members.

The whole notion of communitaurisme reminds of the time I spoke in Paris to a deputy of Chirac’s party at the time, the RPR. He himself was of Tunisian descent, so perhaps he had the fervor of the converted. But it was strange. He denied that any citizen of France should have any interest or perspective other than that of a Frenchman. If you’re gay, Muslim, Jewish, a female, an immigrant, or from a region with its own culture or language, it shouldn’t matter. Otherwise, you’re guilty of what he called “particularisme.”

He said that whatever needs these communities have for representation they already have via their National Assembly deputies. I mentioned that NA deputies represent geographic districts, not cultural or economic groupings. He wasn’t moved.

Then I said that, if blacks in the US south in the 1950s and 1960s had relied on their Congressmen represent them, they’d be a lot less better off today. It was just as well that they had their own leader in Martin Luther King. The bureaucrat had nothing to say in response.

I actually have ambivalent feelings about identity politics; I think it’s a bit overdone. But this instance reminded me of what can happen when there is too little identity politics.

As for the left, I don’t think that it has disappeared, but it is in a state of flux. With the decline of the manufacturing sectors in the West, traditional Marxism makes little sense. That doesn’t mean there isn’t economic inequality and exploitation. In fact, they’re rampant, especially in the USA. But there’s a need to recast theories of the left in order to update them.

The left has alienated much of the working class, first in the US and later in Europe. It has become the province of the affluent and fashionable, so it’s no wonder that working-class issues have gone by the board in favor of “boho” issues like women’s rights, political correctness, “tiermondisme,” and the environment.

The focus on anti-Zionism may be another sign of the intellectual weakness of left-wing ideology. Given the fact that the left is currently unwilling or incapable of developing a coherent philosophy or program, the perennial campaign against Israel may be serving as a substitute.

Worse: they’ll be controlling much of the pension funds and a large part of the fixed budget. Civil service in Brazil is proportionally much larger than in the US thanks, in good part, to all the state companies created during the military dictatorship and now controlled by the left and their clients.
Up until the government immediately preceding Lula’s, for instance, telecomunications were state-owned.

I fully agree with your comment. I remember a rather hilarious instance, years ago, in which someone on a radio was very displeased with the idea (which never
materialized) that immigrants should be allowed to vote
on local elections, even (why not ?) become mayors.
To express his anger, he asked the rhetorical question
“what would be the meaning of having, say, a Danish
mayor in a French village ?”

Was this really what he had in mind ?

Much more seriously, Mrs Alliot-Marie, Minister of the Interior, always qualifies as “violences intercommunautaires” incidents (as you have recalled,
these have happened in numbers in Paris 19 recently)
in which young Jews, alone or in small groups, have
been subjected to harassment or even beaten. This kind
of utterances seems to me cowardly and unresponsible.

Maybe they will catch up to Brazil?
Starting with nationalizing the banks and controlling what Detroit’s big 3 put on the market there will soon be some Estatais to contend with. :-)
And as the PT seems to be in relation to Israel so it seems to be the case as the Obama admin pulls the wool over American eyes and goes along with Durban II.

The reality, however, was nothing of the sort. Instead, Obama’s Durban II team slipped easily into the U.N.’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish environs, taking the approach that “fitting in” was best accomplished by staying silent.

it’s simply amazing to see how alibama adheres to saul alinsky’s method of stealth revolution, and how easy that is with a gullible public. even the corporate ruling class and some of the conservative bloggers don’t get it.
they keep boasting that the market/economy is tanking and that this will sink obama and the dhimmicrats.

but bringing down the market and economy is their very objective!!!!! then the middle class and the ruling class will be desperate for govt help–just watch the banks and large corps beg for handouts. control the banks and you control capital and thus the system.

with the rich finished, capital controled and the welfare expanded, ho will want the republicans back to cut budgets, cut welfare and return the market? even they won’t be able to inflict so much pain by doing that.

Another US/Brazil similarity: the strongest Brazilian opposition party, the PSDB, which would be called liberal in the country, in contrast to the leftist PT, is at least as divided as the GOP is nowadays, and as unable to fight the party in power But there’s a topic in which the PSDB is worse than the GOP: its foreign policy is basically indistinguishable from the PT’s. Nobody in the PSDB would have backed the invasion of Iraq, for instance, nor the WoT. And the more or less liberal media, which is seen as hostile and right-wing by the PT, is not only anti-Israeli and pro-Arab: its recent coverage of the Gaza skirmish actually verged on anti-Semitism. There’s only one good thing that has been happening: the PT’s most viable candidates for the sucession of Lula have been, one after the other, sacrificed to give cover to the boss’s many financial and political scandals.

So Lula’s son became a millionaire;
Biden’s son was involved with someone accused of Securities and Exchange Commission accusations of fraud and apparently laundering the money of a Mexican Cartel chief.

the public is gullible enough to ignore the massive failures–which occur like clockwork every so many years–and remember only the in-between years which create an illusion of efficient free market.

the system has built into it massive failures to be refunded by the taxpayers, not to mention the tons of govt subsidies and contracts awarded to corps.

it is rather a distortion of capitalism and free markets. but that’s what both the govt and the corps mean when they defend and protect free markets.

americans have always lived under the illusion that their system is capitalist and free market. it is the combination of govt and corps that protect the system at taxpayer’s expense and it is this system that has been causing the descent of america both internally and externally.